The Gardeners introduction to the Park City

THE PARK CITY
Introduction: (voice by a commentator)
Welcome to PARK CITY
This is a community case where you will meet people living in the City. The Park area is used by everyone and you will be presented to some of the citizens by John the Gardener who has been working in this park for many years. Please join him for a walk in the park.

THIS SPEACH WILL BE CHANGED A LITTLE: The Gardener will talk to the students (who is watching the video) and he will look back on the summer that now has gone and tells about the activity that could be seen.

This text and recording must be done in October, when the other text has been produced. THen the Gardener will give some short presentations of the different groups of people using the park and some events that has been special and that makes it easy to remember and trigger students curiosity.em>

1)The Gardener:
So you are social work students and you want me to introduce you to the people using the park? Well then you are coming to the right man. There is not much going on in this park that I don’t know about.
I love this park, because so many different people are coming here. I do my very best to keep it nice and especially at this time of the year when the rhododendron is blooming and the weather is good many people come to the park.(REMARK! we have to change this if the recording is done later in the year)It is strange, but it seems that different groups occupy different parts of the park. When we enter the park from this side you will meet the families coming here with their kids, playing and feeding the birds in the pond. (ENTRENCE HERE COULD BE FROM THE VILVITE CENTRE)
(The family presented by the gardener
Gardener’s Introduction to the mothers at the duck pond)

2)This is the duck pond, and to day you can see there are a group of mothers with their children feeding the ducks and the swan over there. The ducks and the swan are so fat they can’t even take off to fly away. Maybe we should have a sign that says “Please don’t feed the birds” J.
Some of the mothers here I’ve known since their parents used to bring them here as children. That lady over there with the two young children is Mary. I remember her as a little girl from long ago. I see her occasionally over the other side of the park where they have the football pitch. I guess it’s because her husband, Peter comes here to play. But sometimes you also see the fathers and grandparents coming here playing with their children or feeding the ducks.



The Gardener continues to walk…

The youngsters presented by the gardener


3)Let me show you where some of the youngsters like to be. This is where the skateboarders are training on their tricks. Since we got this area here many of them have become really good! We also have the football ground as you can see, but many have started to use the grass in the park for football playing as well. I don’t like that because the grass is not made for that kind of activity.
Sometimes there are good outdoor concerts here in the park and then thousands of people can be present here. However it seems that the youngsters are not satisfied with the situation I’ve heard from Eve who comes here regularly with her skateboard. There has been some complaines from people living nearby about the skaters making much noice, and the building of that skating area was nearly stoped because of that.


The Gardener continues to walk…

Well as I said it seems that different people prefer different parts of the park. Over here you have an open space where most of the immigrants use to come.


4)(The immigrants presented by the gardener )

This group enlarged a lot the last 20 years! They are so colourful! Talking, eating, and dancing together with their families. First the Italians came, later Moroccan, Pakistanis, Iraqis and Turkish families and sometimes they offered me their food. Strange, but most of the times I liked it very much!A pity though that they don’t take the leftovers with them when they leave! And they sometimes make a lot of noise, too!
What is funny to see is that the women are together, separated from the men, talking, playing with the children. Some of them you will see are wearing headscarves or burkas. The Bourkanyaia family is one of the families coming here very often, you have probably met Mr Bourkanyaia who is running the immigrant shop outside the park?

I heard there was some trouble with his youngest son the other day.

But not everybody seems to like the situation with all the foreigners coming to the park. Some of the elderly people (none immigrants) told me that they don’t feel at home anymore in their own park! I think there is a lot of predudice among elderly towards the immigrants.


5)The Gardener presents the elderly people (this part might be adjusted?)

Here on the benches near the pond you also find most of the elderly. They like to sit in the shadow of the trees and talk and look at what is going on. Very often you see three ladies over there Ms Schneider, Rivera and Kleiber. They seems to have an appointment nearly every day.But there are also some elderly coming here sitting by themselves, not talking to anyone. I wonder if they have any contact at all with other people.


The Gardener walking….

Now when it is not too cold in the weather some of the homeless in our city are coming to the park and even stay here during the night.

6)(The homeless presented by the gardener)

Here we have the bench Anthony used to sleep on. Officially it is not allowed to stay overnight, but I closed an eye for him because he did not do much harm. I was one of the few people that talked to him. He was shy and did not make much contact with anyone. The locals accepted him and even liked him somehow. So did I: when he died it was as if I lost a member of my family. It is a very sad story. He lived here for a very long time. He had a hard time and one morning I found him with a serious fever so I called the medical mobile unit. But that didn’t do him any good. They forced him to go into an institution, although the outside is his life. The newspaper made a portrait of him before he died.
You know what is funny, I heard recently that he had a lot of money in the bank when he died, but maybe that’s only a rumour.He was not the only homeless person frequenting this park, but he was certainly the most colourful. It is my idea that too many people is suffering with severe social and health problems around here and there seems to be less help and support for those in need.

The Gardener is walking to the end of the park.

7)Well now you can see that we are coming to another entrance to the park. Here is the really troublesome area. Just outside the fence you have the nice old villas and here in the park is the area where you find many of the drug abusers in our city. (ENTRENCE: Nygårdshøyden)

The drug abusers presented by the gardener

Johnny that you can see over there belongs to this group. He has been in the park for many years now. He is not so very well. In many ways he is an amazing person, yesterday you could even read an interview with him in the Street Magazine, that the drugabusers are selling. During the last two months we see the medical ambulant service here many times a day because of overdoses. There seems to be a lack of treatment and health care offered to these people.
A lot has been written in the newspaper about this situation and neighbours living next to this area are complaining a lot about the garbage. needles floating around, and using the gardens for toilett. I can understand that this must be difficult and it makes this part of the park an area where "normal" people avoid as much as they can. I don't think that the situation can continue like this anymore.


The Gardeners Ending:

Well I hope this short walk and presentation of the Park City has given you some information about what you can expect here to happen. As you have heard and seen the park is for everybody just as an ordinary community. I hope this has given you some input to your projects. If you need more information you can search in the electronic newspaper, and also visit some of the people I have presented to you - they will for sure be able to give you more information. Good luck with your job. I hope to see more of you here in the future.